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Railroads are noting that 2020 will be a challenge due to weak manufacturing, low economic growth abroad that limits exports and the potential uncertainty global supply chains.  Railroad traffic were down nearly 8% from 2019 to 2018.  When coal was removed, the drop was over 6%.  That is on top of other challenges the see.  They are also concerned that changes to the climate may create added challenges.

Along with railroads, college investments funds have slowed as well.  There are an estimated 100 universities have endowments in excess of $1 billion (led by Harvard at $40 million. Their returns in 2019 – 6% which sound great, but is less than prior years and was accomplished by risking their endowments in the stock market and less than the 10.4% earned in the stock market.  These schools use and average of $30 million per year to cover their annual budgets.  An economic downturn would create a challenge for them.  Colleges are also facing a tax on their investment earnings imposed by Congress in 2017.

Some economists have argued we are due for a recession.  Startups and tech growth has also slowed.  Travel is an issue as wee as we are still trying to figure out the impact of the Corona virus on the economy.   Is the spring the time and are the public utility systems ready for it?

our fau engineers in action bridge team has landed in south africa on their way to the bush of eswatini to construct a pedestrian bridge they designed. Nice!!

I have often wondered why it seemed appropriate to store waste materials on the side of a river.  There has been a number of incidents in recent years – the gold mine waste in the Animis River in Colorado, and coal ash spills in Tennessee and West Virginia.  The latter caused a large percentage of the people in West Virginia to lose their water supply for months.  Historically the waste ponds were conveniently downhill from mines and power plants, but the logic behind it makes no sense.  No one asked “What could possibly happen if the “dam” broke?”  The results are potentially catastrophic to the ecosystem and utilities have no ability to treat the water to remove these tiny articles – filters won’t do it an membranes will foul.  Neither resolves the problem.  Add to it that USEPA have levied the fewest enforcement action and fines in 25 years, a trend that has been ongoing tor the past 3 years.   Only 75 cases were files in 2019.

The good news that in spite of the lack of federal efforts, some states have been undertaking the effort.  Duke Power and the State of North Carolina have reached an agreement to remove 80 tons of material at its last 9 coal plants, adding to the 126 million tons removed earlier.  Duke Power has 15 years to accomplish the work.  Other states, in the southeast have been making the push. Only Alabama Power has not agreed to remove coal ash.

The question is what happens in the west where mine tailings and mine waste ponds, like the one causing the Animis River issue, remain a threat to water supplies and ecosystem.  The Richmond Mine in California, Summitville in Colorado, Brohm n South Dakota, and more have potential risks to the public  the reality is that  while the mining has brought economic opportunities to the west for over 150 years, metals, acids and salts are left behind leaving the  taxpayers with the bill to clean up the mess.

The issue for all of us, including water systems, is that we all share the same air and water.  When the water or air gets polluted, those that suffer are the downstream users which are often water customers.  We cannot isolate ourselves from water issues, nor allow those that pollute the waters to run form their responsibility.  That is what those pesky environmental regulations that many complain about, are supposed to accomplish.  Unlike the EU though, American politicians are not of one mind that pollution protection is in the interests of the general public over the rights of individualism. Some argue that pollution protection is anti-capitalism and thereby hurts the econo9my.  But if is impacts public health and welfare, does that not trump the argument about economic growth.  Doesn’t the costs of health impacts need to be taken into account?  And since it should, when are mine operators, past and present going to address their streamside problems?

The Detroit and Flint bankruptcies are in the public consciousness, but in both cases the cities emerged from their crisis.  But what happens if the money really runs out?  What if a community cannot escape fiscal challenges.  All over the country there are communities, in spite of economic growth that appears to be occurring, that are at risk.  These communities are primarily rural, because the economic growth in the US appears to be primarily an urban phenomenon.  In fact, as economist Richard Florida calls “winner-take-all” urbanism.  The concept separates top tier communities -the New York’s, San Francisco’s and Chicago’s of the world from everyone else.  These large, thriving urban centers attract talent from all over their world, fueling competition for wages that cannot be challenges in smaller communities.  With US influence declining around the world, and more competition from China nd Russia, where are even more challenges for this talent. It makes the middle class smaller, creating wealthy people at the top and a lot more at the bottom.  Rural America is losing population, mostly younger people seeking better opportunities in urban areas.

Local officials have a stewardship responsibility to manage their assets.  There are no statues to officials who hold taxes down or cut services.  There are no awards for failing to plan, with reserve funds, for that day when the economy falters and revenues are short.  But what if the community cannot keep up?  Then what happens to those people?

Iowa is one of these rural states.  Iowa has 25,000 bridges and 114, 000 miles of roads they are trying to maintain.  The State does not things they can maintain all the roads, so what are they proposing?  How about abandoning plans to maintain certain roads?  The state is proposing just that action but it has challenges.  Roads never go away.  Once there is a road, people learn to rely on it. Farmers use them; taxes get paid for roads – is it fair that your road goes away?  Probably not, but this does not seem to be a sustainable approach either.  If revenues further deteriorate, do more roads go away?

Clearly there is a problem here – and maybe this confirms Dr. Florida’s thesis.